Online desktop is an Operating System that keeps all its information online. The online desktop can be run from a live CD or be as easily fully installed. When a user starts up a newly-installed computer, or visits a friend's house, the user's whole environment will be the same, with no setup to redo. This is also known as a Stateless Linux Desktop. The user's files and settings are stored somewhere else.
In order to provide easy portable access to a user's configuration and files, one basic technique is to provide a stripped-down Linux distro on a bootable storage device, and have the system download the user's configuration files and commonly used data files when the user boots up and logs in. However, there are a few problems with this. First, the installation requires rebooting. Second, no matter what applications or program was installed as part of the distribution, there will always be something some user will need that was not installed. Thus, a need exists for a technique to provide an online desktop distribution that does not require a reboot to use.